"Hmph! And I'm the one who's small-minded? You get scared by the first person who comes along! I am Madam Sterling of the Sterling Family! He's just a soldier! Even if he were an officer, there's no one I can't afford to offend! Calling him an 'instructor' is the nice way to put it. To be blunt, he's just a grunt! Would I, Madam Sterling, really be afraid of a mere grunt?"
Jasmine Faulkner hated being looked down upon more than anything, especially by Seraphina Sterling! Of course, she wasn't all bravado and no brains. She was a university graduate, after all, and had been through military training. She knew that the instructors for these programs were usually just new recruits from local units—many didn't even have a rank. It was precisely this knowledge that made her so fearless. She could only blame her own bad luck that this year's instructor at Aethelgard University was someone she absolutely could not afford to provoke.
